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Monday, March 1, 2010

Yesterday a handful of intrepid souls gathered along the Scioto River on the Whittier Peninsula in Columbus, Ohio to look for waterfowl. Nearly everything we saw was fairly distant and most of the river was frozen, which limited the numbers and variety of birds. We did spook a small flock of hooded mergansers, however, and I was reminded anew how stunning the males are.

Of course I was armed only with my ancient digiscoping rig and the light was pretty poor. I did manage to get a shot of one male along the far riverbank, and upon downloading it to my computer, I could see that its value as a bird photo was minimal. Its value as a seasonal snapshot however is fairly solid. The male hooded merganser with his crest up, the snowy bank behind him, the choppy water, and the bare tree branches all say "later winter/early spring" to me.

It's been such a rough winter weather-wise that it seems many of us are grasping and squinting for any small sign that spring will, in fact, come again. On a freezing cold day along the Scioto, I got a good sign of spring's promise from this lone male merganser.

About Bill

Bill of the Birds

Bill Thompson III is the editor of Bird Watcher's Digest by day. He's also a keen birder, the author of many books, a dad, a field trip leader, an ecotourism consultant, a guitar player, the host of the "This Birding Life" podcast, a regular speaker/performer on the birding festival circuit, a gentleman farmer, and a fungi to be around. His North American life list is somewhere between 673 and 675. His favorite bird is the red-headed woodpecker. His "spark bird" was a snowy owl. He has watched birds in 25 countries and 44 states. But his favorite place to watch birds is on the 80-acre farm he shares with his wife, artist/writer Julie Zickefoose. Some kind person once called Bill "The Pied Piper of Birding" and he has been trying to live up to that moniker ever since.